| Control |
No control over the variables of interest: mensurative and absolute |
Control over the variables of interest: comparative and manipulative |
| Causation |
Cannot establish causation, but perhaps association |
Can establish causation |
| Feasibility |
Can be done in many cases |
May be destructive and thus cannot always be done |
| Examples |
Surveys, monitoring studies, correlational studies, case-control studies, cohort studies |
Clinical trials, A/B testing, laboratory experiments, field experiments |
| Statistical Tests |
Correlation, regression, chi-squared tests, t-tests, one-way ANOVA, time series analysis |
T-tests, one-way ANOVA, factorial ANOVA, regression |